The Connection
by mortalathena
Summary: Sequel to A Past Forgotten. Read that first. It's been two years since Hiccup found Catherine Mary on that island, and everything is pretty much back to normal. Until the Berk teen see a ship that causes Catherine Mary to act... strange. Which leaves everyone asking, who are these people and why do they cause Catherine Mary to have a panic attack? Rated for safety.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! Here's the first chapter of my second book, The Connection. I'm so excited to post this for all of you! To anyone who hasn't read A Past Forgotten yet, I would suggest you read that first. You don't have to, but you will probably be really confused.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD. There.**

 **Now the moment you have all been waiting for. My second published fan fiction.**

Chapter 1

Hiccup

"Alright, gang, let's head back," I called to the other teens. We had just finished herding a pack of Terrible Terrors away from Berk. They had arrived two weeks ago and have been causing chaos ever since. Finally, everyone decided that enough was enough and my dad told us to get them off the island. We found an island a couple days away from Berk to leave them. Now it was time to start the trip home. "We need to hurry if we want to get back to our campsite before nightfall." Everyone nodded and mounted their dragons, eager to get home. We took off. Catherine Mary was last. She had volunteered to make sure the Terrors didn't follow.

It had been two years since I first found the mysterious and timid girl on an island void of any other human life. When I had first found her, she would tense up around humans, but was relaxed around any other creature. She had even started petting Toothless immediately after she met him. She tried to run away from me, even though I don't look intimidating at all. As Toothless and I were trying to catch her and make sure she was okay, she passed out. I brought her back to Berk. When she woke up, we found out she couldn't remember anything before waking up on the island. In the two years she had been with us, she had only recovered a handful of her memories, most of them unimportant.

Catherine Mary caught up with us a couple miles in to the flight. "Any trouble?" I called to her.

"Not much," she yelled back. I laughed to myself. Catherine Mary never had much trouble getting dragons to do what she wanted. Everyone had been trying to figure out how she did it for a while but we were completely stumped. As soon as the other teens had realized that we weren't going to figure it out, it had become a game to come up with ridiculous theories, although I could never tell if the twins realized it was just a game or they actually believed the crazy scenarios they came up with. Once I had asked Catherine Mary about it. She just shook her head and responded, "It's not something I can teach you." I took it to mean she didn't know either. She enjoyed listening to our guesses, though.

After a while, we finally arrived at our campsite. Everyone was so tired, we ate a quick dinner and fell asleep immediately.

Catherine Mary

"Stay here," I told the Terrors once the other teens had left. I still hadn't told anyone about my... abilities. I tried multiple times over the years, but every time I decided to tell somebody I hear the mocking laughter that seemed so familiar and terrifying. Or worse, I would see the fearful way they looked at me before telling me to leave and never come back. No matter how irrational these fears were, I couldn't take the chance. So whenever anyone asked me about what I could do, I would downplay it. And whenever I was near humans, I would act as normal as I could.

Once I convinced the Terrible Terrors to stay, I mounted Adrasteia and followed the other teens. When I finally caught up to them, Hiccup turned around to look at me. "Any trouble?" He yelled.

You mean aside from the usual memory loss? I thought. "Not much," I said aloud. Even with the wind I could hear him chuckle at that. By now, no one was surprised by my "talent with dragons" that surpassed even Hiccup's. Of course, they didn't realize that what I was doing was no more of a talent than Hiccup having a conversation with Astrid, but I wasn't about to correct them. Just like I wasn't going to let them know that my fighting style didn't come from what the people in my tribe taught me. I might not have my memories, but that was one thing I did know. But if I told them, it would lead them to what I really could do and that scared me to death.

I shook myself out of my thoughts as we were landing. I didn't have any more time for reflection as we set up camp and ate. Then it was time for bed. I hated nighttime. The darkness that consumed the entire land always left me on edge. It always seemed as if she was waiting to spit out monsters that would destroy me and my friends before she consumed us too. When my friends first noticed how jittery I was after the sun disappeared, they were amused. They never said so, but I could tell. Once Snotlout tried to scare me. He grabbed at me from behind then the next thing I remembered was Snotlout on the ground as I was holding his arm at an uncomfortable angle. After that everyone made sure I knew they were coming well before they were close enough for me to grab. After tossing and turning for a while, I finally fell asleep.

The next day we woke up early. At least I think we did. Honestly, I hadn't gotten a restful night's sleep when I did manage to fall asleep, so I wasn't really processing things that well. By the time I was finally aware of my surroundings, we were already on our way back to Berk.

We flew for most of the day. We stopped to let the dragons rest around noon and ate lunch. Once we finished eating, everyone started to wander off. I stood up intending to go stretch my legs. As I started to leave Astrid stood up and joined me. We walked in silence for a few minutes. "How are you?" Astrid finally asked.

"Fine."

Astrid gave me a look that said she didn't believe me. "You were pretty spacey this morning. And last night I heard you yelling."

I shrugged. "Nightmares."

Astrid looked at me with concern. "Again?"

Ever since my dream about my parents, nightmares were pretty common. I was lucky to go a week without waking up in a cold sweat. I couldn't usually remember much of the dreams, unless it was the dream about my parents. I usually remember a vague sensation of running. And during the nightmares the sound of laughter that haunted my waking hours penetrated the safety of my slumber.

I didn't bother speaking, I just nodded. Astrid pressed her lips together, but apparently she got the message that I didn't want to talk about it because she changed the subject. We chatted for a while before we finally made our way back to our dragons. Then we resumed the long journey home.

We stopped for the night at the island every one had dubbed "Catherine's Island." The very same place that Hiccup found me about two years ago. When we landed, the dragons stayed awake only long enough to eat before collapsing on the ground, asleep. The other riders were conscious for only a little longer than their reptilian counterparts. I, however, waited until everyone was asleep before silently getting up from my makeshift bed and disappearing into the forest that stood guard over the edge of the beach. I had been this way so many times since I woke up without my memories that I had worn a path through the trees.

Finally I reached my destination. Gothi once told me that seeing familiar people, things, or places might bring back my memories. Because this was the first place I remembered, I would come here as often as I could, hoping that just a piece of a previous memory would return. That I could catch a glimpse of a face or a location that would lead me to the answers that I lost.

I walk into the clearing, and sat down on the ground in the middle. I pulled my hair out of its usual braid, pushing the beads that were scattered throughout into the palm of my hand. Once I finished that, I pulled off the circlet that was the second constant of my outfit. Then I held silver items that, along with the first strip of cloth that I always had tied around my wrist, were the only things I had left from my elusive former life. I poured the beads in my hand into the bag that I brought along for that reason. Then I sat there rubbing the circlet as it sparked faintly in the moonlight. That was where I fell asleep. That night I didn't have any dreams. Little did I know that soon my nightmares wouldn't just be limited to sleep.

 **Annnnddd cut! Mad at me yet? So I was asked by one of my readers to clarify Catherine Mary's powers, and seeing as the characters' personality/situation wouldn't allow me to plainly state it in the book I decided to do it in an author's note. However I've come up with an idea that's a little more fun. She has two sets powers, and I dropped hints about both of them throughout my last book. So I will make this a contest. I would like to see was people think her powers are, so review and tell me what you think they are and I will tell you if it's right or wrong. There may be a prize, but I think it might just be bragging rights and a shoutout plus new information about the mysterious Catherine Mary. Okay, your hint is... Both powers have to do with animals. Have a nice day! Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello everyone! I'm back with a new chapter. Yay!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD.**

Chapter 2

Hiccup

I woke up to Astrid shaking me. It was just after dawn, not nearly late enough to get up. I groaned. "What is so important that it couldn't wait until a more reasonable hour?" I demanded, as I sat up and stretched. Astrid just pointed to the place where Catherine Mary had settled down last night. It took me a moment to realize that the bed was empty and another moment to realize why that was important. "Again?" I groaned. After the first night Catherine Mary ran off into the woods because of a nightmare, we warned her not to go into the forest at night. Since then, she'd only disappeared a few times.

"When I woke up, she was gone," Astrid explained.

Once I realized where we were, it didn't take me long to come up with a location to start our search. I stood up and Astrid and I entered the forest, our dragons following us.

We found her fairly quickly. As I suspected, we found Catherine Mary right where I found her two years ago. She was curled up on the ground, asleep. I walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. I felt sorry for waking her. For the first time I could remember Catherine Mary was actually sleeping peacefully, instead of looking like she was prepared for an attack from a threat that not even she knew. She blinked a couple times before her brown eyes stayed open. "What..." Catherine Mary started to ask before she realized what happened. "Oh," she blushed, "sorry."

Neither of us acknowledged the apology. "I'm impressed," Astrid told Catherine Mary, "someone actually woke you up without you attacking them." Catherine Mary blushed even more at that.

"So what were you doing here?" I asked, "Nightmares?"

Catherine Mary shook her head. "I came here before I fell asleep. Since we were here, I figured I'd visit. Maybe my memories..." She trailed off, but we all knew what she was talking about. After all, this was the first place she remembered and the only place we knew of that could potentially have a connection to her past.

"I'm sure you'll remember," I told her.

She didn't seem to believe me. "Hiccup, it's been two years! All I have to show for it is the memory of my parents' deaths and some vague impressions that don't even make any sense! I've tried everything —" Astrid cut her off by putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Listen, even if you never get your memories back, you still have a life on Berk. Nothing is going to change that. I'm sure you'll eventually get your answers, but until then don't worry about it too much, okay?"

Catherine Mary nodded, her face still wet with tears, though they had stopped falling. After a minute, she was mostly back to normal.

"Ready to go?" I asked, receiving a nod and a sad smile in return. Together we stood up and started walking towards the rest of the troublemakers in our group. As we left the clearing, I prayed to all the gods that they were still asleep.

 **I know this is short, but honestly most of this stuff is pretty much filler and getting the characters right where I want them for chapter 3. Chapter 3 is where all the fun begins, so get excited! Happy Easter! I'm still looking for guesses on what Catherine Mary's powers are. So review and tell me what you think!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey. Sorry this is so late. I actually had this edited and ready to post last Sunday, but I've been busy for the past few weeks. So, yeah. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **Thank you to kaitlynn19 for editing!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD.**

Chapter 3

Hiccup

My prayers were not answered. As we were about to break through the trees at the edge of our campsite, we ran into Fishlegs. Almost literally. He was out of breath and looked like he was about to pass out. "Looking everywhere for you..." he panted, "trouble... ship..."

"Okay, Fishlegs, I need you to calm down and tell me what the problem is."

It took a minute for Fishlegs to catch his breath, but finally he was able to tell us what was going on. "When we woke up, we noticed a ship sailing towards us. We didn't recognize the crest on the sail, but they didn't look friendly."

"Show me."

Fishlegs led us over to where Snotlout and the twins were fighting over the telescope. I grabbed it out of their hands, peered through it, and saw the ship that had appeared on the horizon.

It was close enough that, with the aid of the spyglass, I was able to make out the picture displayed on the sail. It looked like a broken sword and a spear. The ship was made of a dark brown wood. Oars poked out of the side of the boat like the legs of a giant spider, moving in sync and giving it the appearance of a monster creeping towards its prey. But the "head" was the most disturbing part. Attached to the prow of the ship was a dragon skull. It was a type of dragon that I didn't recognize, but the species was unmistakable. The lower jaw was missing, making it look like the mouth was open, ready to swallow a person whole.

I handed the telescope to Astrid, feeling slightly sick. Astrid's face slowly morphed from curious to horrified as she took in the details of the vessel. She handed Catherine Mary the telescope with a dazed look in her eyes as if she was trying to forget what she just saw.

Catherine Mary peered into the spyglass for a moment before her body stiffened and the telescope dropped to the ground...

Catherine Mary

I grabbed the spyglass from Astrid, completely on edge from everyone's spooked looks. My eyes were immediately drawn to the symbol on the sail. I stared at it for a moment and then... fear. Cold, pure fear. Laughter everywhere. "Go away, go away!" Green. Safe. "No! Too close!" Run. Run away. Laughter. Should be...

"Catherine Mary!"

Hiccup

The sound of glass shattering echoed through the forest. Catherine Mary was practically drowning in fear. She started mumbling what sounded like gibberish. Suddenly she grabbed a nearby tree branch. This seemed to calm her down for a moment before panic once again flooded her eyes. She started muttering again. Astrid and I glanced at each other, concern in our eyes. I tried to get her attention by yelling her name.

Catherine Mary

"Catherine Mary!"

Bad? No. Friends. Safe. Not safe. Ship bad. Laughter. Mocking. Trapped. No! "No!"

"Catherine Mary, what's wrong?"

"Danger. Run. Leave now."

Why aren't they moving? "Danger!" Oh. They can't understand.

Hiccup

"Catherine Mary!" I called, trying to snap her out of whatever stupor she was in. For a second, it seemed to work her eyes cleared and she relaxed slightly, but it wasn't long before she stiffened again and continued muttering.

I tried again. "Catherine Mary, what's wrong?"

This time, she looked directly at me as she spoke, but I still couldn't understand what she was saying. She was confused for a moment before a look of realization crossed her face. She finally spoke, but she paused before each word as if she was choosing what she said next very carefully. "We... need... to... leave... now." Then she grabbed Astrid's hand and took off, dragging the poor girl behind her.

 **This... is a lot shorter than it seemed on paper. Oh well.**

 **I know Catherine Mary's POV might be a little hard to understand in this chapter, but she isn't exactly acting rationally. I promise this isn't going to become a normal thing. At this point I think it might show up one or two more times, if at all.**

 **Now, I would like address a question posed by MMM (Guest) in a review. It is about the pairings in this story. If you are desperate to have a pairing, I suppose you can go with the Hiccup/Astrid pairing. I do not plan on messing with cannon any more than I already have. However, if you are expecting this to have any major romance, prepare to be disappointed. I am neither comfortable with nor interested in writing romance. No offense to people who do include romance in their books, that is just my personal preference. I do try to write the characters as in character as possible, so for characters like Snotlout there might be some shameless flirting, but that won't ever lead anywhere. Sorry for that long rant, but I just wanted to get that out of the way. Hope that answers your question MMM.**

 **Also, nice guess, MMM, but no. Feel free to try again. :-) For those of you interested in the "guess Catherine Mary's powers" game, I will post a list with what other people have guessed on my profile, so you don't guess the same thing. MMM has been the only one too guess so far. Let's see if anyone else is up to the challenge. I will admit that one of them is pretty hard to guess, so if you get the easier one right, I will give you the other one, if it isn't solved within five guesses. One review or two powers (one for each power she has) counts as a guess. Feel free to guess as many times as you want. I'll give you another hint: one of her powers is demonstrated (or rather, not demonstrated) in this chapter. Compare Hiccup's and Catherine Mary's POVs.**

 **Also thank you to everyone who reviewed. I love to hear from you amazing people!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey! Sorry it's been so long since my last update. I'm not even going to offer you an excuse. Instead I'll go ahead and let you read the chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD.**

 **Thanks to kaitlynn19 for editing the chapter.**

Chapter 4

Catherine Mary

We were almost back to Berk by the time I was mostly back to normal. We rode in silence. Every couple of minutes, someone would glance over at me. They were trying to be discreet about it, but they were failing horribly. It was easy to tell that they were worried I would go off again, and I didn't blame them. I was worried too. However, it wasn't what just happened to me that concerned me. No, I was more worried about _why_ it happened.

Ever since I came to Berk, my tendency has always been towards caution. Fear was a constant emotion for me, and it showed in both my personality and my actions. However, in the two years I lived on the island, I had never had a panic attack quite that bad. Whatever that symbol meant, it wasn't good. Even now, when we were far away from the boat, every time the picture flashed through my mind, it made my heart stop for a moment. The only explanation was that it had some horrible connection to my past. Something that was probably best left forgotten.

Of course it wasn't that simple. It was never that simple. Though my first instinct was to run, now that the perceived danger was far behind me, curiosity was starting to replace the fear. This was the first clue to my past that I found since I woke up on that island two years ago. Based on the way I reacted to the ship, I was certain there were monsters hiding in my past. Monsters I might not be prepared to face. But if there was some good with the bad, a friend waiting in the dark, then it might be worth it.

Besides, whoever or whatever was on that ship was obviously bad. What if they posed a threat to Berk? No matter who I was or where I lived before, Berk is my home now. If that ship was dangerous, my memories might contain the only information available about the enemy.

Just as I made up my mind to return to the island later to check out the ship, we arrived at Berk. I was less than thrilled when we finally landed, although I could tell Adrasteia was relieved to be on land again. I was happy to be home, but I was dreading the questions that everyone would be asking about the events from earlier. I hated conversations like that. They reminded me of how much of a mystery I was, not only to those around me but also to myself.

As expected, once we dismounted, Hiccup left to go talk to his father, and Astrid called me over. We didn't start talking immediately, instead we strolled for a little bit, silently agreeing to head towards the forest.

One thing I found out shortly after arriving on Berk was that for some reason, I was more comfortable in the forest than anywhere else. This preference first surfaced when a nightmare reminded me of my parents' fates. It became glaringly obvious as whenever I felt scared, I would dash towards the forest. Eventually, Hiccup and Astrid started leading me there every time they needed to talk about something that might make me nervous.

Sure enough, once we were surrounded by trees, Astrid approached the subject that we both knew needed to be acknowledged. "What happened back there?"

I shrugged. Unable to come up with a satisfactory answer, I replied with, "I panicked."

She acknowledged my response with a small smile and an eye roll. "Obviously. But why did you panic? Did you remember something?"

I sighed. "I remember realizing the emblem on the sail looked familiar.

After that, I stopped thinking straight. The one thing I know for certain is that whoever is in that ship presents trouble for me." What kind of trouble I wasn't sure, but that didn't matter at the moment.

Astrid frowned. This wasn't the news she was hoping for, but probably what she was expecting. "Do you think you've encountered these people before, even if you don't remember it?"

"I'm certain I have." I didn't even have to think about that response.

"Could they be searching for you for some reason? Perhaps you were a prisoner and you escaped somehow or something similar?"

"Maybe…" I hoped that wasn't true. I prayed to the gods that they couldn't care less about me. If they wanted me, that probably meant they knew what I could do… If they were searching for me, I could never let them find me.

 **And there we go! That kind of took an unexpected turn. She goes from irrational too reflective in one chapter. Oh well. Sorry again about the long wait. It might be a while before my next update. Things are only going to get busier from here for a while.**

 **Thanks to MMM and Snitchstar for reviewing.**

 **MMM: Her family is dead, remember.**

 **I haven't gotten anymore guesses for the contest, but it's still open, so review and tell me what you think Catherine Mary's powers are!**

 **You guys are awesome!**


End file.
